TMC creates technician career development task force

In an effort to combat the rising technician shortage in the trucking market, TMC has created a technician career path development task force to help retain, recruit and promote quality technicians. The new task force debuted Monday at TMC’s Annual Meeting in Nashville, and was led by Brian Mulshine at Navistar and Chris Harvey at PACCAR.

In its first discussion, the task force brought up a lot of topics.

“Whose responsibility is it for a career development path? Its the employees,” said Mulshine. “Ultimately their career growth is on them. We create an environment to give employees the opportunity to excel.”

During his presentation, Mulshine addressed what fleets and service providers can do to inform technicians about their current position and career growth, as well as the reasonable steps techs can take if they want to improve their career.

Multiple attendees of the meeting spoke to the attitude and ownership necessary for technicians to grow in the business. Even when management provides step-by-step information about how to grow a technician’s career, it’s up to that tech to start going up that ladder, said Mulshine.

Understanding how to set and create career goals also was addressed, with attendees noting that technicians need to be aware of how fast or slow it takes to grow in a business.

When it comes to climbing the corporate ladder, techs and businesses can’t forgot about the horizontal steps between each new position.

Mulshine said businesses also need to encourage technicians to discuss their goals if they want to grow. Feedback must go both ways, and technicians need to know that.

The task force’s next meeting will be held in September at TMC’s fall meeting in Pittsburgh. For more information on the task force, contact TMC.